Cartridge tape drives are widely used in the computer industry for backing up data on hard disks. These drives utilize tape cartridges which consist of reels of magnetic tape mounted within a plastic and metal protective cartridge. In front of each cartridge is a door which must be rotated open to allow a read/write head located inside the tape drive to contact the magnetic tape within the tape cartridge.
Unfortunately all tape cartridges do not use the same size format. As such, a tape cartridge door opener which was designed to work for an industry standard DC2000 tape cartridge may not work for the newly introduced TRAVAN tape cartridge made by 3M corporation. Typically a fixed rail was used by prior art tape drives to open the DC2000 tape door. This rail would cause the tape door to open as the cartridge was pushed inside the tape drive. As the door opened, a gap was opened up into which the fixed rail would fit thereby allowing the tape cartridge to continue to be inserted fully into the tape drive.
The TRAVAN tape cartridge design precludes a fixed rail type of tape door opener as has been utilized in the industry for the DC2000. Because of the side design of the TRAVAN cartridge, a fixed rail would hit the side features of the cartridge and prevent the cartridge from being fully inserted into the tape drive.
FIG. 1 illustrates a DC2000 size format tape cartridge and FIG. 2 illustrates an TRAVAN tape cartridge. As can be readily seen from a comparison of FIGS. 1 and 2, the TRAVAN tape cartridge side 201 does not have a slot as does the DC2000 (101). While not illustrated, the left and right sides of the tape cartridges are substantially symmetrical. Since the TRAVAN is missing a slot such as 101, a fixed rail door opener will strike the side of the TRAVAN cartridge thereby preventing the full insertion of the cartridge into the tape drive.
To allow both a DC2000 and an TRAVAN cartridge to be utilized in a single tape drive, a different door opening mechanism is required.